At the Student Loans Company, we remain at the forefront of supporting the education sector by providing trusted, transparent, and accessible student finance services. And we have marked another significant milestone in the 23/24 delivery of student finance to the education sector, paying more than £2 billion pounds in tuition fees to higher education colleges and universities this past week.
On Wednesday, 18 October, we paid £2.06 billion in tuition fees to education providers on behalf of almost one million students. This follows the almost £3 billion that was paid in maintenance loans to students since the start of academic term in September.
In total, I am pleased to report that we've paid over £5 billion* in student finance in the 23/24 year so far.
We take our role as the UK Government's delivery partner of student finance very seriously as we know it's an essential service to the daily lives of students, as well as giving financial stability to the wider sector. And even though the academic year is well underway, there's no downtime for SLC, as we are already looking ahead to January payments and gearing up to deliver the launch of the 24/25 academic year's application services.
*Please note these are provisional figures. Full year figures are published in our Student Support for Higher Education statistical release which will be published on 30 November 2023.